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Luis Arraez seems to have avoided serious injury, but the San Diego Padres have placed their first baseman on the seven-day concussion injured list, the team has announced.
Arraez sustained his injury in the first inning of the Padres' 3-2 win over the Houston Astros on Sunday. The three-time batting champion laid down a drag bunt and collided with second baseman Mauricio Dubón, who was covering first base. Arraez hit the ground and the game was delayed nearly 15 minutes as the team's medical staff worked to stabilize his head and neck, then cart him off the field.
“It was very scary,” Shildt told ESPN’s Buster Olney after the game. “We don’t see those kinds of collisions in our sport a whole lot. Luis is a really tough guy. To see him down like that, you know something is serious.”
The Padres later confirmed Arraez was “stable, conscious, responsive, and able to move his extremities.” X-rays showed no fractures or major injuries and Arraez stayed in Houston overnight for observation. He will undergo further testing when he returns to San Diego.
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“Overall very favorable relative to how scary that looked and was,” Shildt said, according to AJ Cassavell of MLB.com. “[Arraez] woke up, slept well. As you would expect, he has some stiffness in his neck, but nothing cognitively is anything we’re overly concerned about. He is going to go, rightfully so, in concussion protocol. More tests are going to be done — hopefully more out of caution than necessity.”
Arraez was just starting to hit at the time of his injury. The reigning NL batting champ was hitting .258 a week ago, but was 8 for his last 21 going into Sunday. Given the lefty-hitter's lack of power (31 career home runs) and poor walk rate (career 6.8%), as well as his underwhelming defense, Arraez needs to get base hits to be valuable.
The Padres recalled infielder Mason McCoy from Triple-A El Paso to take his place.
